#July2013

Another Monday. Another Morning Commute. I ain’t complaining. I’m still sucking wind on the Big Blue Marble. For the moment. And for the moment it is still Big, and Blue. So while I’m here, let me lead the communion. This is the wonderful column where we share the various arts, farts, liquors, variety of cracker, and other nonsenses that are entertaining us in a given week.

Oh snap! Looks like OMEGA-`LECTION DAY is upon us! I can’t believe we’ve made it to another one, but since we’re here we might as well celebrate! Hit the jump to check out all of our totally legitimate coverage!

The William Hicks biopic is getting off the ground, apparently, and Crowe is aiming to direct it. I had no idea that Russell Crowe wanted to make a Bill Hicks movie, let alone that he was a fan of the mad genius.

Let me tell you a story that my superiors at the Time Guild wouldn’t want you to know.

A couple of days ago, I decided that I wanted to travel to the year 195,000 BCE. Since it was the weekend, I had to use my personal time-machine, which I actually prefer to the stodgy contraption they allot me at the office. However, without the Guild’s temporal disinhibitor-ray, it was up to me to craft a suitable concoction. So after filling my gut with three liters of Pepsi Max, taking a shot of bourbon, and huffing paint thinner for the better part of an hour, I stumbled into my broom closet and passed out.

There you have it – my secret recipe for spacetime fabric softener.

Anyways, when I came to I was in the dense jungles of prehistory. Looking skyward, I saw a pterodactyl soaring majestically. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I looked to the ocean just in time to catch a glance of a megalodon snapping a leviathan in half before submerging once again. And on the path before me, two cavemen bros riding their steeds, a saber-toothed tiger and a mastodon, respectively.

The caveman on the saber-toothed tiger was the first to see me, and he quickly pointed me out to his buddy. “Daniel, check it out! It’s another one of those dudes from Beyond the Wheel.” He waved to me invitingly, “C’mon over, man!”

I was nervous, but I obliged.

The other caveman hopped off his mastodon and shook my hand. “Hey there! My name’s Daniel and this is my friend Hollis. Who might you be, Beyonder?”

“Pleasure to meet you, Daniel and Hollis. My name is Rendar Frankenstein and I’m from the year 2012. Well, actually, I’m originally from 1986 but I’ve caught up to 2012, and I guess that’s when I’m not shifting all over. I’ve been to a lot of points in the 20th century, and hell, I’ve even gone back Plato’s cave and the Garden of Eden and beyond that. You guys ever see 2001?”

Blank stares.

I laughed. “My bad! Anyways, what’re ya’ll up to?”

With a pat on my back, Hollis clued me in. “We’re actually about to meet back up with the tribe and raid a T-Rex nest. With those things on your feet,” he pointed to my hi-tops, “you could really help us out. You want in?”

Long story short – dinosaurs were murdered, the caveman tribe was victorious, and I got to start off today by having a prehistoric omelet.

Just don’t tell my superiors at the Time Guild. I need this job, and they’re lookin’ for a reason to can me.

–-

Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! I’m going to list off the various ways I’ll be salvaging my (dwindling) sanity during the workweek. It’s then your duty to hit up the comments section and share your own recipe for mental-refuge. C’mon, ain’t this the whole point of an Internet community?

Welcome to Bovine America, where shotguns and fast food are going to come stapled to our tits upon birth. Naw man, I shouldn’t stunt. This is goddamn awesome. It’s a moderately attractive female firing a shotgun, generating a rainbow. How can this not be everything George Washington hoped for when he fought the Martians for control of Delaware?

We’d met earlier in the evening for some casual drinks. Sitting in the Holo-Lounge, we ran a huge tab and sparred with one another. We both pulled punches, knowing that the other was far too vulnerable to be dealt a true blow. She was as defenseless against my clever quips as I was against her cheekbones and ass. Oh boy, was I defenseless when I was against her ass!

Anyways, banging a supermodel in a space station hotel suite is hardly an event worthy of a bedpost-notching. Hell, the name R. Frankenstein isn’t on three different brands of jetpack-vibrators because my stinky-little-peenie hasn’t gone off-planet. No, I’ll never forget my sexual encounter with Miss Americana 1973 because of what she gave me.

My first LSTD experience.

She had just climaxed, yanking out a clump of my hair and pouring a bottle of Pepsi on my belly (per my request) when I started to feel…off. At first I chalked up the tingling at the back of my head to either coital-bliss or an impending tumor. So I kept feebly thrusting. And the tingling persisted. So I kept feebly thrusting. And the tingling grew stronger. So I kept feebly thrusting. And the tingling turned into music.

And then the walls began melting and Roger Rabbit materialized so that he could tickle my ass and Miss Americana 1973 metamorphosed into a squid-creature that would’ve made even the likes of Lovecraft squirm and cry like a babby and then I began to cum but my dick shot out staples instead of ejaculate but I felt no pain only the wonder of producing steel from my sexual reproductive organ and I had to apologize to my squid-lover of the evening because I had shot staples all over his back but I made sure to clean them up with a rainbow.

When I awoke the next morning, Miss Americana 1973 was nowhere to be found. It seemed that I was completely alone in the suite. But then I closed my eyes and I saw that I had visitors – the spellbinding memories from the night before.

The remembrances of my first sexually-transmitted hallucinogenic experience.

–-

Hello to all of you – the heroes, bombshells, brats, nerds, Capitalist-hating-Commies, stuntmen, nurses, Commie-hating-Capitalists, post-modern Romantics – that visit Omega-Level? Thissere’s the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE, your spot for sharing the various means by which you’ll survive the workweek. Hit up the comments section and share what you’ll be reading, watching, playing, eating, or listening to this week.

[face of a franchise presents two individuals that’ve fulfilled the same role. your task — choose the better of the two and defend your choice in the rancor pit that is the comments section]

The wise old man may be my favorite archetype of all. This is the dude that lives on the outskirts and is ostracized by regular folk because his otherworldly knowledge frightens them. Fortunately, this geezer’s benevolence keeps him buoyant enough to guide a callow protagonist on his epic journey, imparting wisdom along the way.

Oh, he’s also been known to die mid-journey. But don’t worry, he’ll probably return from the grave. And if he does, the chief’s going to have plus-thirty Sick Powers.

But there are two that stand shoulders above the rest, not only fulfilling the role of the helpful wizard but defining it for new generations. I’ll make a case for each and then let you hit up the comments section with your choice. Omega-Readers, short or tall, who is the dopest wizard of them all?

[images & words is the comic book pick-of-the-week at OL. equal parts review and diatribe, the post highlights the most memorable/infuriating/entertaining book released that wednesday]

Congratulations, Joe the Barbarian! Not only did you beat Jonah Hex and Sweet Tooth in this week’s triple-threat comics cage match, but with your final issue you’ve become one of my all-time favorite limited series. You’ve earned a spot in my Best Of list and, if there’s any damn justice in the world, comics history as well.

So how did you do it, Joe? How did you never tire while running for eight issues over the course of a year? Brandishing a tale of a hallucinating youth in the midst of insulin-shock, you easily could’ve devolved into incoherent drivel. Your parallel narratives (wandering through a house looking for sugar and traversing the most hidden recesses of childhood imagination) could have slugged each other out: DOUBLE KO!!! And yet, with each appearance you became more effective.

More affective.

So how did you do it? It was, beyond a coffee-stained shadow of a doubt, that intangible, unquantifiable quality for which all art should aspire. It’s that warm little nagging at the forefront of excitement, the pinch on your ass that makes you giddy, that informs the reader/viewer/listener that the artists at work care. Necessarily, this quality defies definition and rears itself only in terms of gut-instinct. But it’s undeniable. Unshakable. Motherfucking unstoppable.

Pushed aside by his siblings, there’s no chance for the little one to suckle the teat. The others become fat and content, gorging incessantly on the readily-available sustenance. The runt must find a new source, a way to survive despite being rejected by Mother Society.

And so he crawls, one painful movement at a time, towards the avuncular alternative. It is not an easy trek, but it is rewarding. For Father Nerd turns away nary a soul.

–-

This is the Monday Morning Commute, the post where we share what we’ll be doing over the course of the next week. Come on in, wrap yourself in a snuggie, take a shot of Crystal Pepsi, and tell me what type of debauchery you’ll be filling your time with.